The invention relates to a method and a device for mounting wheelheads or wheelcarriers on a chassis or part chassis of a vehicle, in particular during the production of the vehicle. The terms "chassis" and "part chassis" also refer here to self-supporting bodies or part bodies.
In vehicles with individual wheel suspensions, the wheelheads supporting the wheels are guided by more or less complicated guide members. These are, for example, longitudinal and/or transverse links and/or telescopic struts which are fastened to the wheelhead and/or to the chassis in an articulated or movable manner. In order to ensure a high degree of driving safety, the guide members must be mounted in such a way that the desired position of the wheels, particularly as regards camber and caster, is assumed as accurately as possible. An undesirably high outlay has hitherto been necessary for this purpose, in order to ensure that the requisite desired position is assumed in spite of a large number of parts which interact with one another and have tolerances.
To this end, there may be provisions for machining the bearings of the guide members with very high accuracy and predetermining very narrow tolerances for the guide members themselves.
Alternatively, there may be provisions for equipping the guide members or their bearings with adjusting devices, so that, after the wheelheads and guide members have been mounted on the chassis, the adjustment of the wheels or wheelheads, which is still necessary then, can be carried out.
Both methods are very costly.
DE 36 32 477 C2 discloses a measurement and arrangement method for arranging and fastening attachment parts to automobile bodies. Moreover, corresponding devices are illustrated. According to this publication, the body, including the position of the side wall cutouts or the contact points for attachment parts, is measured in a separate measuring station. The body subsequently passes into a mounting station, in which first the position of the body is determined accurately and then the doors or attachment parts are applied with an exact fit, using handling machines.
The object of the invention, then, is to simplify the mounting of wheelheads or wheelcarriers and, in particular, the adjustment of these during the production of a vehicle.
This object is achieved, according to the invention, in that the chassis or part chassis and the wheelhead or wheelcarrier to be mounted are oriented in a desired position relative to one another by means of a handling device. A main guide member is ready-mounted between the wheelhead or wheelcarrier. The chassis or part chassis is used for predetermining a parameter or set of parameters of the desired position. Guide members mounted previously on the wheelhead or wheelcarrier serve for connecting between the wheelhead or wheelcarrier and the chassis or part chassis in order to determine chassis-side fastening positions assigned to the desired position. The guide members are fastened there.
The invention is based on the general notion of accepting manufacturing tolerances and compensating them by locating fastening positions suitable for this purpose, using the guide members, already mounted on the wheel, as a mounting gage or mounting aid, after the wheelhead and chassis have been accurately aligned. As a result, different positions for fastening the guide members to the chassis are then obtained for each running gear according to the respective tolerance compensation, specifically in such a way that, when the wheelheads are in a predetermined normal position relative to the chassis, the desired values for track, camber and caster are achieved accurately without any further measures.
In this case, the invention makes use of the fact that, due to the current state of the art with regard to handling devices, the desired position of the wheelhead and chassis can be set with very high accuracy and with moderate cost before the associated fastening positions are determined.
According to a particularly preferred embodiment of the invention, the guide members are fastened to the chassis at elongated holes present there, specifically at the fastening positions which are predetermined by the respective guide member when the chassis and wheelhead are in the desired position.
Instead, it is also possible to predetermine, on the chassis, only a usually linearly narrow region for fastening holes or elements and, with the aid of the guide members to be mounted, to determine, within these predetermined regions, the fastening position assigned to the desired position of the chassis and wheelhead and then arrange the fastening hole or fastening element accurately there.
Moreover, as regards preferred features of the invention, reference is made to the claims and to the following explanation of the drawing, by means of which particularly expedient embodiments are described.